Cats are smart.
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In Sherbrooke birding with my better half today when I spotted this little critter. She took the shot and posted it on a field naturalist site and they went mad over it. They all reckon it’s a Turbercle Burrowing Crayfish and that they’re pretty rare, apparently endangered in Vic, but they can be seen in the Yarra Ranges after decent rain, which fell yesterday. We carefully lifted it out of the way of tourist foot traffic and hope it’s burrowing away again.
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Amazing looking thing. I think the Gippsland ones aren’t as bright. In the Prom Views Estate at Walkerville, volcano like mounds are common in some areas, including our yard. I’ve never really actually seen one, but did look them up a while back.
Here’s a spiny cray seen fly-fishing in a trout stream last weekend.
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That’s an amazing looking cray.
My parents used to own a house along Hill Street, the road between the top of the thousand steps, and the old lookout/current picnic ground. They lived there from the day the fires came through that area, 28 years ago, until about 10 years ago.
There were burrows all through gardens in that area. You’d never see the actual crays, but you’d see their shells now and then when they’d molt. The locals said they were yabbies that lived in an underground creek. Which never made any sense to me, because it was at the top of a hill. How do you get a creek at the top of a hill?
Seeing this, a land burrowing cray, makes a whole lot more sense.
This article explains a little bit more about them and the other local cray, the Dandenong burrowing crayfish:
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